I listened to a BBC radio show today, Reading Europe, written and spoken by Moroccon-Dutch writer Abdelkader Benali.
Benali describes his favourite bookshop.
He quotes Rainer Maria Rilke's poem Autumn Day.
The last stanza is (sometimes) translates as
Whoever is alone now, long will so remain;
will stay awake, and read, and write long letters
and wander the alleys up and down,
restless, as the leaves are drifting.
but Bengali translates the last line as
wild, as the leaves loosen.
Later he refers to a French saying. I don't catch the orginal French, but his translation is
the universal honey that gives flavour to daily life
books can do that, but there's more
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